Four Little Words
by OneDarkandStormyNight
Summary: A look into Dean's thoughts in the final scene of "Sacrifice" (the last episode of Season 8), when so many years' worth of pain and problems culminate in one moment, when his sick little brother looks into his eyes and says that dying is the only way not to fail him again. (Short post-episode tag, too.)


_Normally when I post a new story/chapter, I mention at the top where I am and what trouble I've gotten myself into lately. Since this is a totally new fandom for me, I'll just say hi...Hi.  
I hope anyone reading this has had a good day so far, and if you haven't, I hope this mess of super-sappy-brotherly-stuff will maybe make your bad day a little better. Below is a possible post-ending tag to Sacrifice (Season 8, Episode 23), but seeing as it's full of (as mentioned before) super-sappy-brotherly-stuff, it's actually not all that possible and more the imagination of a fangirl who loves protective big brother Dean and sick baby brother Sammy. Enjoy anyway!_

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**Four Little Words**

There were plenty of things he could have done to prevent this.

Hell, there were plenty of things he could have _not_ done to prevent this.

He could have realized sooner that Sammy had been _poisoned_, and that anything he did while under the effects of that poison was the brainwashing of those bastards who had done it to him—Yellow Eyes, Ruby, all the others. He could have not thrown away the talisman Sammy gave him when they were kids.

He could have known that his dying—more than once—had torn Sammy up inside more than he ever knew…more than Sammy's dying had him, maybe. He could have not assumed that all his little implications and innuendos about Sammy's mistakes, even more than his outright, uncensored resentment, would just breeze by without affecting either of them.

He could have seen the way Sammy was looking worse and worse every day, and he could have not told himself that it was just the trials wearing him down.

He could have remembered sooner that he was Sammy's big brother, and Sammy would never stop needing him, and all these vibes he'd been getting for years—ever since Ruby—about how Sammy felt that he was tough enough, and strong enough, and how he didn't need Dean as much anymore…how it was all just bravado; it was all just him hiding the soul-eating guilt and bitterness and anger against himself, hiding it all inside the walls of his skin because he believed that if he didn't, he'd be asking Dean for even more that he didn't deserve from him, and Dean didn't want or need that after all he'd done to let him down. He could have—_should have_—not fallen for any of that. He knew Sammy better than that.

But he did. He fell for it. He saw with his own two eyes the way Sammy shrank away from him little by little every day, even in big bits all at once sometimes, and he never even stopped to think that, past all the New Sam, there was still a lot more of his weepy-eyed baby brother left beneath the surface, reaching out for Dean and begging his forgiveness.

Dean never offered it, not really. That was probably his worst _could have_ of all.

Maybe these thoughts flickered across his mind once or twice over the years, in the moments when he was about to lose Sammy again, or lose _himself_ again, but he never stopped to dwell on them. He just dealt with the situation in front of him, said what needed to be said for the moment, good or bad, and moved on.

And Sammy was left with nothing but his own feelings about himself to cloud up his estimation of Dean's.

Dean thought Sam was dealing; he thought he _had_ dealt with everything that had happened. He thought little brother was fine on his own—wiser, more stable. That was his worst _could have not_ of all.

And it took all this time, all this energy wasted arguing and trying to figure each other out and dancing around the important stuff, for him to realize all of this. He realized it all in a second, while it sunk in that his _brother _actually thought that it would be okay with him if he just died. It took four, little words for it all to come crashing down on him.

"How do I stop?"

And all at once, New Sam wasn't so complicated anymore. He wasn't new at all. He was just Sam, with the same, sick, teary eyes he'd had as a kid, when he'd caught the world's worst cold and had woken up in the middle of the night in their lonely motel room, begging Dean to tell him how to stop the fever-induced nightmares.

And Dean was just Dean again—big brother Dean who took Sammy's hand and told him just to let them go.

"Just let it go," he told him now, mimicking that time—that way that he used to speak to his little brother.

"I can't," Sammy half-gasped out, as the white light continued to glow through his tan arms. "It's in me, Dean. You don't know what this feels like."

He tied up the cut in Sam's palm, gently.

"Hey, listen. We will figure it out, okay,"—He smiled at him, kindly and hearteningly, like he had before.—"just like we always do."

He had said similar words before, but all those times, he'd been talking about the next battle, the next burden, the next hell they would have to endure to meet some grand, Earth-saving, monster-ganking end. Never had he been talking about them—him, making Sammy better again.

"Come on."

And he pulled him into his arms, with no hint of hesitation or uncertainty from either of them.

Sam sighed gruffly and clutched onto him as he rode out the pain in his veins. His hands twisted in the back of Dean's jacket, cold as ice and strangely electrified, like the air before a blizzard. Dean held him close with one arm around his shoulders to keep him upright while his other hand smoothed across his back; he felt the spine protruding there and wondered when Sammy had gotten so unhealthy and how he hadn't noticed.

The power died down from the skin of Sam's shaking arms, and for a moment, he thought it was all okay, that Sammy was here and he was going to get the chance to make all of this right after all, over beers where he would mince no words in a little heart-to-heart with his little brother.

Then, Sam, who barely grunted when sliced open by the claws of monsters on a hunt, shouted in agony and collapsed to his knees on the dirty floor of the rotting church building.

Like it wasn't enough to feel Sam shaking and moaning in his ear as they stumbled out into the rainy yard, they sat together against the wheel of the Impala and watched as angels fell and listened as Cas never answered his calls. Sam could barely breathe through the pain. Dean's attention split between his hurting little brother and the angels that were falling.

While they fell, fiery men and women with white wings that sizzled away the closer they got to the sin-infested world, Dean turned and slid his arm behind Sam's shoulders. It was stupid, maybe, and he was pretty sure that after his words, "Angels—they're falling," Sammy wasn't about to be fooled into thinking it was all fine and dandy, but he didn't care. He held his brother against him and cupped his face for the next few seconds as he watched them fall, like he was some mother-ass bear in the woods protecting her young or something, like the angels weren't the equivalent of a skilled hunter's well-aimed bullets.

Sam's face was burning up under his fingertips, and Dean had the feeling, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it wasn't just the trial doing it. He was just sick. Sammy was sick, and it was Dean's fault, and he was the only one who could make him better.

Everything could fall to hell for all he cared in that moment. He was finding the closest empty basement he could get to and keeping them both in it while he fixed Sam. Little brother is the most important thing; Sammy was going to understand that again. Little brother is the _only_ important thing.

He looked down into Sam's eyes. They were exhausted and pained and frightened, but there was a tiny glimmer of hope in them that Dean hadn't seen for a long time and hadn't missed until now.

He took a gentle handful of Sam's soft, sweat-soaked hair to be sure that Sam understood. Dean was going to take care of him.

The younger man offered a faint nod and fainter smile, but that was good enough.

Dean lifted him with a strength he didn't even know he had, and he had just settled him carefully in the Impala and was sliding across its hood to the driver's side when the first of the nearest angels started to rise up out of the lake water.

Dean murmured quietly to Sam as he drove.

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_Like I said: super-sappy-brotherly-stuff.  
__I do feel like I should say one thing really quickly. I know that the show nowadays is based on a ridiculous version of Christianity and there are a lot of crude things at times, but one thing I've always said: Fiction is fiction. Reality is reality. I am a Believer in the (real) Christian God and I'm not ashamed of that, but that has nothing to do with what I like about Supernatural or how I write it. To me, SPN is 100% fake, just like any other show of its kind. I'm not trying to be too serious or anything; I just felt better adding that.  
ANYWAYS...You have no idea how nervous I am to be posting this; I guess because I've loved this show forever. I REALLY want to get the characters right because I really love Dean and Sam a lot. (Of course, how could anyone not? They're like everybody's brothers.) I have to say that between the Dean and Sam brotherness and the angels falling, I'm left hoping we get even more awesomeness like that in Season 9! Also more Cas. I love that stupid angel. _


End file.
